The touring exhibition was initiated in collaboration
with the Architectural Association, London, and
Folch Studio, Barcelona. For more information about
the tour and related events visit archizines.com.

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Volume 33 Interiors
Table of Contents

For years, the interior played second fiddle to ‘proper’ architecture,
but there are signs a shift is taking place. Stagnant economies, shrinking
populations, environmental imperatives, all signal that there is less
reason to build, and more reason to make better use of what we have.
Digging deeper, we find the interior is a powerful marker of who we are
and what we want to be; ‘lifestyle’ in other words. Political ideology,
social norms and psychology all get played out on the inside. The interior
relates intimately to the society we live in, and it’s up to us to understand
this dynamic, provoke it. Like the old adage ‘Don’t judge a book
by its cover’, let’s ‘open up’ architecture and take a closer look inside.

of interviews and reviews, but also with the right
spatial surroundings, the correct setting for such
a life. Furniture, apartment, and house were all
part of a particular profile that the urban man and
reader of Playboy would want to identify with. One
of the interesting finds is that this was an almost
exclusively interior world.
In the early 1970s, the Dutch Goed Wonen merged
with an architecture magazine and shifted its atten­
tion to the social dimensions of the city. This was not
by coincidence as it was the period in which interior
space became contested, as expressed by squatting.
This movement revolutionized not only received ideas
of property and (spatial) rights, it also revolutionized
the very notion of living. It didn’t take a Rietveld
chair, Pastoe cupboard, or a Bruynzeel kitchen – not
even a three-room apartment – to live a decent
urban life. The aesthetics of the house and its spatial
arrangement were as subject to revolt as ownership,
fashion, and looks.
We don’t have to spell out all the events since.
The interior became subject to fashion society-wide
and fully part of consumer logic, aggregating more
and more ‘capital’ inside.
On average, westerners spend most of their lives
indoors. These internal worlds (home, office, leisure)
have become almost transparent and intermingled
to a considerable extent, but they still exist and will
do so in the near future. We’ve seen inventions like
the open kitchen, the loft, the flex office, and more.
We’re witnessing a major shift in architecture from

Volume 33

If I say ‘battlefield’, do you think ‘interior’?
If I ask: “who shapes society?”, would you answer:
“The interior architect”?
Less than sixty years ago, the battle for eman­
cipation and class education was fought on private
territory: inside the apartment. Today one’s house
is supposed to be an expression of one’s individuality,
but in those days the interior was subject to ideology
and class struggle. During the first phase of the
industrial city, newcomers in Western European cities
had to be educated to behave like citizens: clean
the house, manage waste, mind the children, in
short conform to urban social rules. The right to live
in a social rental apartment would be the reward
for disciplined and confirmative behavior. After the
Second World War, the focus of attention shifted
to how to live a modern life: clean, healthy, and
there­fore happy, with simple, well-designed modern
pro­ducts in spartan, light, efficient spaces. One of
Archis’ predecessors was dedicated to this very task.
Inspired by social-democrat and modernist ideals,
monthly magazine Goed Wonen [Good Living] showed
what a good interior should look like as part of a
program of education and emancipation.
On the other side of the world a magazine
with a seemingly different focus had a similar goal
to educate via the interior. Included in this issue is
research on Playboy’s role in creating ‘the bachelor’,
a new ‘specimen’ in society at that time. Beatriz
Colomina’s research shows that Playboy actively
promoted and in part even invented this ‘man of
the world’. It came with the right products as repre­
sented by its advertisers, with the intellectual profile

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constructing new to re-using existing spaces over
the last years (again, in the western world, but other
regions will follow) due to the economic crisis, but
also stimulated by the whole sustainability debate
(on average, it’s more sustainable to maintain than
to construct).
But despite this history and despite recent
developments, we hear little or nothing from archi­
tects about the interior as subject for research and
design. We hear very little from interior architects
in general. Well for those with really good ears,
some quarreling over professional boundaries can
be over­heard. In some countries an interior architect
is something other than an interior designer. And
the interior designer (who shouldn’t touch construc­
tion) is not the same as the interior decorator. All
three have their specialty, but apart from make-over
TV shows, their status is relatively low, certainly
in comparison with architects, urban designers, and
urban planners. Maybe related to this status issue
is a tendency among interior architecture schools
to include the ‘urban interior’ in their curriculum.
Curiously these departments are predominantly part
of art schools, and rarely connect to technical uni­
versities, which separates interior architecture from
the larger scales.
This move ‘into public space’ could be thought
of as defensive or flight forward, it can also be seen
as forward-looking, in the sense that this fusion
of public and private is played out in both domains.
So instead of moving into new territory and leaving
old territory behind, interior architecture could claim
and create a pivotal role.

Volume 33

It would certainly be a good thing to include the
interior in our thinking about society and its futures.
And also to realize that the private interior is just
as political as the town square or the internet. Archi­
tecture has ‘always’ claimed to do more than accom­
modate function and program, so now it’s interior
architecture’s turn to provide more than comfort
in private space; a more inclusive approach would
be needed. There is a world to be had in creating
arrangements that take flexibility and temporariness
serious and start from interaction.


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1.

A
“I like your apartment.”
B
“It’s nice, but it’s only big
enough for one person – or two
people who are very close.”
A
“You know two people who
are very close?”

B
“When I look in the mirror
I only know that I don’t see myself
as others see me.”
A
“Why is that, B?”
B
“Because I’m looking at my­
self the way I want to see myself.
I make expressions just for myself,
I don’t make expressions other
people see me make.”
“I want to look in the mirror
A

Jimenez Lai is sitting in a gallery
space at the London Architecture
Foundation drawing furiously.
He is occupying his own installation,
Three Little Worlds, living there for
eighteen days as an experiment
in performance, framing, exposed
domesticity and, what he calls
‘character plasticity’. At its root the
installation looks at the degree
to which an architectural situation
affects our behavior. The ‘caveman’
paintings he’s working on start to
fill up the space, while from behind
a plate-glass window that separates
him from the street, people watch.

and see nothing. People are always
calling me a mirror and if a mirror
looks into a mirror, what is there to see? I like that
I don’t exist today.”

B
“Maybe you make better expressions when people
stare at you.”
A
“Or maybe I really don’t enjoy being stared at all
day, or sitting by the windowsill with strangers glaring
or tapping on the glass.”

B
“Oh, A,” [said impulsively] “You should be an actor!
That way you’ll never feel this way. You’ll always be some­
one else, and always with better expressions. Imagine
that, a grown man running around pretending to be dif­
ferent people.”
A
“Sure. But I can’t do unattractive things in public –
nose picking, slouch on the couch… I just don’t feel I can
be myself here.”

B

“Isn’t it great to be someone else sometimes?”

B folded her clothes as she packed. Her cleanliness was
making me a little jealous.
2.

We attempt better facial expressions when we have the
awareness of being watched. In private, people generally
don’t desire to make better facial expres­sions, groom
their hair, sit with good posture, or dress well because
no one is watching. Being watched transforms a person
to become a slightly different character, with an appli­ca­
tion of man­ners, depending on who is watching. Whether
the watcher and the watched are love interests, pro­
fessional affiliates, or simply strangers, the dynamic will
influence the behavior. As well, the position, distance,
and location between the watcher and the watched
will contribute to the bond. This is to say, the relation­
ship between two people can encourage character
plasticity, and architecture can directly establish such
relationships.
Frames, platforms, stairs, and windows are some
of the ways that architecture can directly induce
character plasticity. A plat­form, for example, can elevate

V33_FINAL_CS6.indd 6

someone to a higher ground than
other people – this simple act
establishes a social hierarchy,
where the person on the pedestal
becomes the spectacle and can
no longer be anonymous among
the masses. Conversely, stairs can
reverse the height relationship
by making the lower position the
spectacle. This type of engaged
performance demands the watched
person to heighten their notable at­
tributes and diminish the unat­trac­
tive ones. Windows, on the other
hand, can partially frame a person
and create a mystery narrative.
If a person is only framed around
the foot, this reveal leaves many
clues to the watcher as to what
kind of shoes, socks, gender, and size the person
behind the window is. This can only invite the watcher
to curiously imagine the rest of the picture, and project
their own fantasies. In doing so, the weight of character
plasticity shifts heavier to the watcher than the watched,
as the watched may or may not be aware of an external
surveillance. The watcher now transforms into a voyeur,
or a flâneur, a wanderer partaking in the fragments of
the city and its culture.
Three Little Worlds, my installation in the London
Architecture Foundation, is ingrained in the abovementioned thoughts. The relationship between perfor­
mances, public/private, framing, exposed domesticity,
and character plasticity form the composite core of this
exploration. Furthermore, this project wants to con­struct
a stage for stories – the frames are physical comic book
frames that a person can walk into to become a different
person. The visitor stepping into the frame will be fully
aware of its transparency to the outside, since they saw
the frames from the storefront before entering the gallery.
The visitor inside the frame completes the piece, as
the awareness of surveillance transforms the visitor into
a performer. At the same time, the glass barrier and dis­
tance erases the immediacy, as the exchange of stares
can be gratuitous with little consequence. I lived inside
the piece for eighteen days as an experiment to decon­
struct privacy and break the typical domestic diagram.
In addition, I painted ‘cave paintings’, remembering
the plans and sections of buildings that I like and then
cartoonishly reenacting them. The windows that frame
the three frames also frame the cave-painting mural, with
a transformed character swerving between the layers.
Initially conceived as a previous working title, Hefner
Beuys House, this project also wanted to ask the question:
who is the extrovert between Hugh Hefner and Joseph
Beuys – who represent two different kinds of perfor­
mance artists – when Beuys took himself out of context
and staged his life, whereas Hefner merely invited
people to his own house?

Table Talk

By Jimenez Lai

Volume 33

Character Plasticity

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20/09/12 14:18

Three Little Worlds, installation at the
London Architecture Foundation

Volume 33

Photos Daniel Hewitt

Table Talk

05:00 am

sleeping

05:00 am

stumbling home

06:00 am

working

06:00 am

sleeping

06:00 am

sex

07:00 am

leaving

07:00 am

sleeping

07:00 am

coke + sex

08:00 am

sleeping

08:00 am

dancing

08:00 am

3.

Another accompanying facet to Three Little Worlds
was the drawing Cartoonish Metropolis, where an urban
section through a set of towers reveals an interior with
episodic and pluralistic rooms, where no one room is
alike. The physical installation Three Little Worlds can
also be thought of as an excerpt of the drawing, a frag­
mented physical blow up of this reality. This drawing
is a counter-argument to Koolhaas’ article Typical Plan;
perhaps it is true that towards the end of the twentieth

V33_FINAL_CS6.indd 8

century, there was a spirit of the times that yearned
for the stacking of generic spaces. However, we are now
witnessing the aftermath of such a spirit – typical plans
encourage typical behaviors. It encourages monoculture:
a world where being crazy is rare and striving for the
typical life is the expected way. The ongoing mutation
of culture, however, needs more crazies. It is through
misbehavior that newness can be uncovered, rehearsed
and emerge out of sameness.


While in the eighties Hong Kong took the Asian spotlight for its vibrant
film industry, bustling street scenes, and accessible brand of capitalism,
since then attention has drifted to Shanghai, Beijing, and beyond.
But worry not, Hong Kong has kept its cool; and still has plenty of curb
appeal for the intrepid urban voyager. Take for instance its vast network
of elevated pedestrian streets, footbridges, and escalators. The city
has taken three-dimensionality to heart by adding extra layers of
infrastructure to manage what is one of the most congested cities in the
world. Lucky for you, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a guidebook out there to help you manage
these streets in the sky. In Cities Without Ground, Adam Frampton,
Jonathan D Solomon, and Clara Wong take you through the vast interior
public world of Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pedestrian street network. With this guide
you can travel for miles and miles without ever touching the ground:
an interior world superimposed on the city. In an age of rapid
urbanization and unstable climate, might this be a model for the future?

74

68
72

70

Current Coastline
36
1887 Coastline
56

38

50
44

52
54

8

N

46

1 km

Volume 33

Hong Kong Island

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...IFC mall is a hub for more ferries from
outlying islands, more trains from the
airport, and buses from all over the city...

The warning comes early, in the editorial of the very first
issue of Playboy magazine with Marilyn Monroe on the
cover and the promise of her naked body inside:
“We don’t mind telling you in advance – we plan
on spending most of our time inside. We like our apart­
ment. We enjoy mixing cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or
two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph,
and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discus­sion
on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.”1
The playboy man is an indoors man. But why
“we don’t mind”? Why would they mind? What’s there to
mind? The editorial is clear. Other magazines for men
“spend all their time out-of-doors – thrashing through
thorny thickets or splashing about in fast flowing streams.”
The playboy is a different kind of animal. He is also a hunter
but the metropolitan apartment is his natural habitat.
He knows everything about it and keeps adjusting it to
better catch his prey. In fact, he cares more about the lure
than the catch. It is the apartment itself that is the ultimate
object of desire. The playboy and his magazine are all
about architecture.
This philosophy is embodied in the figure of Hefner
himself, who famously almost never left his bed, let alone
his house. He literally moved his office to his bed in 1960
when he moved into the Playboy Mansion on 1340 North
State Parkway, Chicago, turning it into the epicenter of a
global empire and his silk pajamas and dressing gown into
his business attire. “I don’t go out of the house at all!!!…
I am a contemporary recluse”, he told Tom Wolfe, guessing
that the last time he was out had been three and a half
months before and that in the last two years he had been
out of the house only nine times.2 Fascinated, Wolfe de­
scribed him as “the tender-tympani green heart of an
artichoke”.3 Even when Hefner went out, he was not really
out, but wrapped in a succession of bubbles, all designed
to extend his interior: the specially outfitted vehicles;
the Big Bunny jet, a stretched DC-9 designed by Ron
Dirsmith, the architect of the mansion, with a gourmet
kitchen, a dancing floor, a living room/conference space,
discotheque, a wet bar, state-of-the-art cinemascope pro­
jectors, sleeping quarters for sixteen guests, and Hefner’s
suite with shower and an elliptical bed covered with
Tasmanian opossum skins; the home away from home of
the Playboy clubs, starting with the Chicago club in 1960
and rapidly grow­ing from seven Playboy clubs in 1963
to seventeen by 1965 and ultimately thirty-three around
the world. Playboy is produced in a radical interior and
is devoted to the interior, devoted like a lover.
The magazine was filled with interiors from the very
first issue. No detail of domestic space is left untouched,
from the furniture, lighting, hi-fi, and dress code, to the
mixing of a good martini. The first page of the first issue of
the magazine, facing the editorial, shows a cartoon of the
proud playboy (a male bunny) at home in his pajamas and
bathrobe, standing beside his modern furniture, high­
lighting the Hardoy Butterfly chair of 1940, which became
a signature piece in the playboy interior, often acting as
a kind of portable home for the Playmate. Already in the
second issue, a feature on naked playmates keeps describ­
ing in detail the ‘modern’ design, flooring, and furnishings of the California ranch-style house where the models
are photographed. “Some say you can judge a man by the
way he furnishes his home”, the article sympto­matically
begins, in what will become a kind of mantra in
the mag­azine.4 Design is the key to the Playboy lifestyle.
Frank Lloyd Wright and Wallace Harrison are praised in
the fourth issue for bringing modern design to the house

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Beatriz Colomina

Radical Interiority: Playboy Architecture 1953–79

3

Volume_33_PlayboyInsert_17SEP2012_lastcorrectionsMS_CS5.indd 3

and the skyscraper. “The exciting simplicity of modern
architecture” stimulates Playboy.
The role of design for Playboy becomes even clearer
when the next issue provides a guide to the twenty-five
steps of a successful conquest. The sequence is mapped in
a modern apartment as if the layout and equipment itself
choreograph the dance of seduction. As the playboy
maneuvers his prey towards the bed, each detail of the
apartment assists the movement. Not by chance does the
journey begin with the lightweight curves of the butterfly
chair and the deep sensuous folds of Eero Saarinen’s 1946
Womb chair, another signature chair of Playboy. It is as
if the designers are in the room, helping out. The Playboy
apartment is a cocktail of modern design, martinis, and
music. Far from simply providing an array of seductive
images, Playboy analyzes the architecture of seduction.
It offers a kind of user’s manual to the reader. And in the
end, the sophisticated playboy needs to know more about
modern design than about women.
Everything is seen through the lens of design. Even
a spoof on psychoanalysis offers a detailed drawing of the
couch and plan of the room. Likewise, the movement
of furniture is broken down, as are the precise movements
of the martini production. Playboy relentlessly dissects
each dimension of the interior.
This dedication to the perfected interior culminates
in September 1956 with the Playboy Penthouse – the first
Playboy designed apartment lavishly illustrated in an eight
page spread, longer than any typical feature, and continued
with another six pages in the following issue. Rejecting the
convention in which “the overwhelming percentage of
homes is furnished by women”,5 the point was to create an
interior that is unambiguously masculine, with equipment
that stays and women that come and go:
“A man yearns for quarters of his own. More than
a place to hang his hat, a man dreams of his own domain,
a place that is exclusively his. PLAYBOY has designed,
planned and decorated, from the floor up, a penthouse
apartment for the urban bachelor.”6
Atmospheric renderings conjure up a continuous
landscape of entertainment. Each successive space is descri­
bed in great detail with all the individual items separately
identified, including designer, manufacturer, and price:
Knoll cabinets, Eames and Saarinen chairs, Noguchi table,
etc. The house is full of the latest electronics and media.
A signature feature is the electronic entertainment center
with hi-fi, FM radio, TV, tape recorder, movie and slide
projectors. The entire environment can be controlled from
the bed which is the epicenter of this idealized interior.
The imagined occupant/driver of the space is the reader.
In a canny seduction, the magazine describes the most ad­
vanced interior architecture design for “a man perhaps very
much like you”. The reader, or the reader’s fantasy, is the
client and is offered the keys to the apart­ment in the first
page of the article.
Architecture turned out to be more seductive than
the playmates. The penthouse feature was the most popular
in the magazine’s history, surpassing even the centerfolds.7
Architecture became the ultimate playmate, the only one
allowed to stay. Playboy received hundreds of letters re­
questing more information on the house, asking for more
detailed plans and where to buy the furniture. In response,
the magazine started a hugely popular series of features on
‘playboy pads’, including the Weekend Hideaway (1959),
the Playboy Town House (1962), the Playboy Patio Terrace
(1963), the Playboy Duplex Penthouse (1970), and so on.
In each case, the fantasy is the same: the bachelor and his

19/09/12 11:01

Playboy Architecture 1953–1979 accompanies the exhibition
with the same name at NAiM/Bureau Europa, Maastricht:

September 29th, 2012 – February 10th, 2013.
All texts and research for this brochure have been produced by
professor Beatriz Colomina and her students from Princeton University.
All images from Playboy magazine, except where stated otherwise.
Materialized by Irma Boom Office

Playboy Architecture 1953–1979 is featured as a supplement
to Volume 33: Interiors.

19/09/12 11:01

Volume_33_PlayboyInsert_17SEP2012_lastcorrectionsMS_CS5.indd 32

e r u tc e t i h c r A
9791–3591

Big Exit
By Simona Rota

Volume 33

Photo Simona Rota

In a stuffy Madrid bedroom, photographer Simona Rota is posing
for her camera. She is shooting a series that explores the relationship
between an inhabitant and her apartment, in which the inhabitant
tries to find escape. In so doing, we are invited to see a struggle
take place in the various corridors, corners, niches, and openings that
the apartment provides. For the shoot she uses both her own apartment,
with the permission of her roommates, as well as the flat of
a 70-year old friend. But a third, metaphorical scenario exists as well,
that of a city consumed by a proliferation of apartment blocks.
In her notes she writes a series of questions, asking who really rules:
do we rule the apartment or does it rule us?